Good afternoon guys,

Title says it all really. I am after advice on a suitable 5.1 surround sound system. Hoping to not have to pay more than £300 but not bothered about it including a DVD player.

Looking to connect Sky HD and PS3 via best method possible.

May be dreaming given what price range I am looking at but wireless or wireless option rear speakers would also be beneficial.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Sony HT-IS1300 I think its called. 5.1 surround that does the lot. 3 hdmi in, 1 out. multichannel linear pcm, dolby truehd, dts hdma, 1000W. £299.99 on play.com, if the name is wrong, its on the play.com electronics main page. I'd get it if I had the room

Thank you very much - will definitely have a look at that as a quick search as shown it has reduced to £270 on Play.

Its this one

http://www.play.com/Electronics/Elec...archtype=genre

HT-SF1300

Yamaha AV63 is really good £200 ish

http://www.petertyson.co.uk/ebuttonz...aha_av63.shtml

I like how because he says he has a budget of £300 everyone automatically picks ones that are near enough the £300 mark lol, as if anything else below it is simply not good enough.

What do you think about the Panasonic SC-PT460? It's just £143.05 and it includes a DVD player.
The reviews are good as well even if it's quite a cheap home cinema system.

Could your spam be any less subtle, "Mel"?

Good afternoon,

Since my opening post, I have given great thought in to buying the two systems mentioned and also a couple of others seen on Amazon.

However I seem to be dwelling a little trying to ensure that I make the correct decision.

Most of the 5.1 systems quoted only appear to have one optical input and I will be looking to connect Sky HD, PS3 and probably an XBOX 360 and would like to avoid using any kind of splitter etc.

Would it be worthwhile buying an amp instead and using the 5 speakers I have from what I consider a pretty decent Technics stereo? Looking at no more than the original £300 I set aside if possible.

The amp I have seen getting good reviews is the Sony STG 820.

Any advice would be welcome.

Thanks

amp choices

http://www.denon.co.uk/site/frames_m...detail&Pid=388 denon

http://www.eu.onkyo.com/products/TX-SR606.html onkyo

http://www.richersounds.com/showprod...Y-STRDG820-BLK sony


you need as many HDMI inputs as possibel and HDMI 1.3


just get one of these and use your speakers, if you want you can upgrade the speakers later; but the amp is the key

Many thanks Niall,

I will look in to these - just need to make the decision promptly otherwise I never will!

[quote=niall campbell;29219117]amp choices

http://www.richersounds.com/showprod...Y-STRDG820-BLK sony

Niall,

Apologies for asking but sound systems are not my strongest point!

I am leaning towards the Sony,

1) It has several HDMI inputs, am I right in thinking that I have one HDMI connection from the TV to the AMP, connect Sky HD and PS3 via HDMI to the AMP and control input selections from there
2) Does this remove the need for Optical audio cables?
3) The XBOX connection will be via component, other than this not carrying audio, is the same connection i.e. TV to AMP, XBOX to AMP?

Many thanks for your help.

[quote=Ben1980;29220145]
You are nearly there......

Connect SkyHD/PS3 to the amp via HDMI, then HDMI from amp to TV.

Connect optical cable from Sky HD to amps optical input.

The above connections will give you HD audio from PS3 and DD5.1 from Sky HD when available.

The reason you have to connect the optical from Sky HD to the amp is because Sky's HDMI does not carry DD5.1 only 2.0.

For the Xbox I would connect directly to the TV via component, I have no idea on the audio, I'm assuming it has optical? If so just connect this in the same way as Sky HD.

You will most likely have to go into the amps setup menu and assign the digital inputs (optical) and HDMI so when you switch sources the video and audio comes through correctly.

Can I ask what's the point in connecting the SkyHD box to the amp using HDMI as you also need to run optical from SkyHD to amp?

is it simply so that the receiver does the av selection - SkyHD - PS3 - blu ray etc? and you only need to select one HDMI input on the TV and let the amp do the rest?

If you just wanted to connect SkyHD and say a Blu Ray player to the amp would optical from both into the amp work fine without bothering with HDMI into amp and back out to TV?

[quote=Deacon1972;29223917]
Thank you - I have made my mind up and am gonna go for it!

[quote=Ben1980;29220145]

you still need optical from sky to amp as HDMI on sky box doesnt do Dolby Digital

all connections to amp and then goes up HDMI connection to TV

also if you have the xbox with component rather than HDMI hook up to amp and it will send it up HDMI for you

Basically it's just for ease of use - you have to have the amp on for the audio, it's just makes it easier to let the amp do the switching for video and audio instead of having to preselect a secondary input on the TV for the video and another input on the amp for the audio for a particular device.

Nothing stopping you from connecting either device directly to the TV via HDMI, then connecting them to the amp via optical - the only problem with this method is you would only get DD/DTS from the PS3, the PS3 needs to be connected via HDMI as it's the HDMI connection that carries the HD audio, optical is unable to pass these HD formats.

If it's just a normal 5.1 amp then optical is fine.

My mum is looking for a similar system. but it's for standard Sky (rather than HD) and a PS3.

The Sony system looks like just what she needs, but unfortunately it has free-standing speakers and the room just won't accommodate them. Can anyone recommend a similar system with wall-mountable speakers?

any speaker can be wall mounted

just go for wee ones

Sorry, what I meant is that the Sony ones look like they'll be very big when off the stands, and so probably wouldn't be suitable for wall mounting.

Perhaps the Yamaha AV63 is the best bet.

I've recently got the Sony HT-SF1300, and I would certainly recommend it. Excellent sound and plently of inputs for just about any system. Running both my sky HD and sony blu-ray through it, and it has no problem passing the Sky HD video through the HDMI and using the optical in for the audio.

The speakers are quite large, but are suitable for wall mounting. They have 2 mounting points on the rear and as long as your use decent screws or masonry nails they are fine. I have 2 on the stands and 2 wall mounted.

The auto setup works well, although I did a small amount of tweaking to get things spot on.

Many thanks for explaining that

The Yamaha AV 63 Pack is one of the best 5.1 systems I have heard below £400. Set up correctly it certainly does the job. And the Price is very good.

The Amp has Centre Speaker tone calibration and Crossover adjustment so you can really push out a decent warm (and loud) sound.